have to write. Just focus on moving my feet forward, one after the other. That’s the only thing that
matters.
I pass twenty-two miles. I’ve never run more than twenty-two miles, so this is terra incognita. On the
left is a line of rugged, barren mountains. Who could ever have made them? On the right, an
endless row of olive orchards. Everything looks covered in a layer of white dust. And the strong wind
from the sea never lets up. What is up with this wind? Why does it have to be this strong?
At around twenty-three miles I start to hate everything. Enough already! My energy has scraped
bottom, and I don’t want to run anymore. I feel like I’m driving a car on empty. I need a drink, but if I
stopped here to drink some water I don’t think I could get running again. I’m dying of thirst but lack
the strength to even drink water anymore. As these thoughts flit through my mind I gradually start to
get angry. Angry at the sheep happily munching grass in an empty lot next to the road, angry at the
photographer snapping photos from inside the van. The sound of the shutter grates on my nerves. Who
needs this many sheep, anyway? But snapping the shutter is the photographer’s job, just as chewing
grass is the sheep’s, so I don’t have any right to complain. Still, the whole thing really bugs me to no
end. My skin’s starting to rise up in little white heat blisters. This is getting ridiculous. What’s with
this heat, anyway?
I pass the twenty-five-mile mark.“Just one more mile. Hang in there!” the editor calls out cheerfully from the van. Easy for you to
say, I want to yell back, but don’t. The naked sun is blazing hot. It’s only just past nine a.m., but I feel
like I’m in an oven. The sweat’s getting in my eyes. The salt makes my eyes sting, and for a while I
can’t see a thing. I wipe away the sweat with my hand, but my hand and face are salty too, and that
makes my eyes sting even more.
Beyond the tall summer grasses I can just make out the goal line, the Marathon monument at the
entrance to the village of the same name. It appears so abruptly that at first I’m not sure if that’s really the
goal. I’m happy to see the finish line, no question about it, but the abruptness of it makes me mad for
some reason. Since this is the last leg of the run, I want to make a last, desperate effort to run as fast as
I can, but my legs have a mind of their own. I’ve totally forgotten how to move my body. All my
muscles feel like they’ve been shaved away with a rusty plane.
The finish line.I finally reach the end. Strangely, I have no feeling of accomplishment. The only thing I feel is utter
relief that I don’t have to run anymore. I use a spigot at a gas station to cool off my overheated body
and wash away the salt stuck to me. I’m covered with salt, a veritable human salt field. When the old
man at the gas station hears what I’ve done, he snips off some flowers from a potted plant and
presents me with a bouquet. You did a good job, he smiles. Congratulations. I feel so thankful for
these small gestures of kindness from foreigners. Marathon is a small, friendly village, quiet and
peaceful. I can’t imagine how this was where, several thousand years ago, the Greeks defeated the
invading Persian army at the shore in a ghastly battle. I sit at a café in the village and gulp down cold
Amstel beer. It tastes fantastic, but not nearly as great as the beer I’d been imagining as I ran. Nothing
in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness.